Czechoslovak government-in-exile

The Czechoslovak government-in-exile was a provisional government that was formed by the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee in 1939, existing until the end of World War II in 1945. The government-in-exile was explicitly anti-fascist, and it sought to reverse the Munich Agreement and Nazi Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia and return the republic to its 1937 boundaries (including the Sudetenland). During the war, it served as the legal successor of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

The committee was created by President Edvard Benes in Paris, France in October 1939, and the committee withdrew to London, England in 1940 due to unsuccessful negotiations with France for diplomatic status and the impending Battle of France. In 1941, the government again moved to Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire during The Blitz. During the war, Czechoslovakia mobilized 180,000 troops, and the 1st Division fought in the Battle of France in 1940, while the 11th Infantry Battalion fought at Tobruk in Libya in 1941 and the 1st Czechoslovak Armored Brigade took part in the Siege of Dunkirk in 1944-1945 after landing in Normandy. In May 1945, the government-in-exile returned to Prague after the liberation of Czechoslovakia.